Impolex: A Lot of Mumbling at the End of This Rainbow

Impolex (2009) is a DIY nano-indie shot entirely in the Vermont woods, and for a few minutes you think youve got your mitts on another filmmaking-as-preteen-make-believe launch into the void, somewhere between the Kuchars and Flooding for Love With the Kid. But hold on: Alex Ross Perrys film starts dropping clues that its got bigger dreams, as the World War IIsuited hero Tyrone (slackjawed Riley OBryan) searches aimlessly for toy V-2 rockets in whats supposed to be the forests of northern Europe, and occasionally gabs with a (very real) octopus draped over a log. Thats right, Perry has fashioned a telescoped version of Thomas Pynchons Gravitys Rainbow, complete with ubiquitous bananas, a handmade tarot deck, missions beyond the zero, tales of the Kenosha Kid!, a V-2 numbered 00000, and so onthe allusions peppered amid the drowsy heros meanderings, naps, and cryptic conversations with dreamy strangers (including a nagging femme named Katje). Poking at the 20th centurys densest and nuttiest American mega-novel with the skinniest of sticks, Perrys movie is a bit of a sleepwalknothing much happens, as if it were a daydream the iconic Tyrone Slothrop had between lines in the novels Zone chapters. This quality, of course, can only be appreciated if you dont let guileless amateurishness, or chronic mumbling, ruin your evening.